


Thanks A Latte

by GoldenWaffles



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Bad Pick-Up Lines, Literal Crackfic, M/M, Mugverse, Please Do Not Take This Seriously, crackfic, puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:40:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24956224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenWaffles/pseuds/GoldenWaffles
Summary: Jeremy's mug "Optimug Prime" and Dolls's mug "X" spend the night together in the break room sink. X is feeling a little shattered, so Optimug decides to cheer him up with the life-changing magic of bad puns and pick-up lines.Warning: This is a crackfic based on a groupchat joke that got away from us.
Relationships: Optimug & X, Optix
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14





	Thanks A Latte

**Author's Note:**

> This came from a runaway joke in a fic writer's groupchat. Please don't take this as representative of my writing as a whole. It's just a fun ficlet to amuse anyone who feels like a laugh and is willing to roll with a strange premise. If that's you, then welcome to... The Mugverse.

Optimug Prime was exceptionally well-traveled for a non-travel mug. He had skulked inside apartment cabinets, perched on tabletops in science labs, and now held a place of honor on the desk in a small-town police station.

Because of this, he sometimes found it hard to relate to other, less adventurous mugs. The other mugs in the police station— plain mugs that lacked his worldliness— had lived their entire lives in the station’s kitchenette, never experiencing life outside the dingy building.

But there was one exception— X.

X understood what Optimug Prime had been through. He himself had spent time in the Black Badge labs, among the scientists and doctors. X had traveled as well, to all sorts of far reaches that the local mugs couldn’t have even _dreamed_ of.

Not that X was a braggart about it. No, he was always stoic and aloof— maybe too aloof for Optimug’s liking, since Optimug had a bad tendency to babble his way through awkward silences, and more than once had caught himself rambling about chemical structures of synthetic compounds to the other mug’s stony silence.

Optimug and X had only ever been acquaintances while they were at Black Badge, but now that they were both in the police station, it felt like they were always running into each other— in the cabinet, or in the sink (although they never stayed in the sink for long— Officer Haught always washed them if she found them there, even though she never drank from either of them).

It had been confusing at first, because when Optimug first arrived, the person who drank from X was the stout, gray-haired Sheriff Nedley, not X’s usual human, Dolls. X seemed sensitive about the topic. He refused to believe that he had been abandoned, but he was clearly worried about his Dolls. Optimug remembered him being stoic before, but nothing like this. Before, there had been moments of kindness and levity, occasional jokes and maybe even some comments that Optimug had found vaguely flirtatious.

But there was none of that now. In place of that low-key friendliness was an impassive wall of eerie quiet, like X was always just waiting, and waiting, and waiting…

And though they might not have been the closest of friends, the two mugs were comrades, bonded by their sense of duty and their life experiences, and Optimug couldn’t bear to see X so bereft. It threatened to shatter his heart— and shattering was _no joke_ to mugs.

So, being the optimist that he was, Optimug decided to do something about it.

He made a plan. A crazy plan, but a plan nonetheless. And maybe it was _just_ crazy enough to work.

It was late in the evening, and Jeremy had carried him sleepily into the station’s kitchen, setting him in the sink, where Nedley had set X hours ago, full to the brim with water to prevent staining. Officer Haught wouldn’t be in till morning, so they had all night in the sink together.

The silence was awkward at first, and for a moment, Optimug wondered if this was a terrible idea, if it would make X hate him, if it would all backfire spectacularly.

But what else could he do?

“Come here often?” he asked, an admittedly lame opening line. X didn’t answer right away, and Optimug felt droplets of water trickle down him like nervous sweat. He hoped X didn’t notice.

“Huh?” X said finally, as if he hadn’t even realized he was being spoken to.

“Uh, n-nothing!” Optimug said quickly, chickening out. But he forced himself to rally his courage. “It’s just, I _sink_ we’re going to be here all night, so we might as well talk to pass the time, right?”

“You… _sink_?” X sounded confused, but he was talking back, and after weeks of silence, Optimug considered that a win.

“Yeah, I _sink_ we should talk!” Optimug said cheerfully. “Unless you have a _chip_ on your shoulder about it? After all, don’t we see a _latte_ of each other these days?”

“I… guess so,” X said, still a bit noncommittally.

“Get it? A _latte_ ,” Optimug probed, trying to make sure the pun was actually landing. After a beat, he decided that X must have understood. He wasn’t a stupid mug, after all. “So I thought, what an _X_ -cellent _X_ -cuse to get to know each other better, right?”

“I don’t know…” X said, but Optimug could have sworn that he heard the tiniest bit of interest in his voice. In any case, it was enough to keep going.

“You look like one _tall glass of water_ , X,” Optimug said. “You know, Jeremy always likes lots of sugar in his coffee, but I bet if he used you, he wouldn’t need any. Because you’re already so sweet!”

He gave a second for the lines to sink in, and waited for the backlash, the inevitable _shut up, Optimug_ that would no doubt follow. But instead…

“You think that?” X asked, very quietly, his voice still serious. Serious, but maybe a little bit hopeful.

“Hell yeah! Sweet as Splenda!” Optimug said eagerly, then made himself dial it back a good five notches. “And look at that shape! You ever heard of love handles? Because I _love_ your _handle_.”

X made a noise that might have been the barest shadow of a laugh, and Optimug felt a rush of victory.

It was working. Maybe, just maybe, it was working.

“I mean, X, are you full of coffee, because you’re looking _hot and heavy_ over there!” Optimug crowed. “It’s getting downright _steamy_ here in this sink!”

The noise that came from X this time was _definitely_ a laugh, as quiet and halfhearted as it was. And there was the slightest bit of heat radiating over from the mug beside him, warm and encouraging.

“Come on, X, you know you’re the _creamer_ of the crop. Around here, _X_ marks the spot for one _X-_ traordinary, _X_ -ceptional, _X_ -quisite mug!”

“Cut it out,” X said, but his laugh was growing louder, and more authentic, less suppressed, as if he were letting himself enjoy Optimug’s pun-derful flirting technique. This just made Optimug feel braver.

“Why? Am I making you _thirsty_? Am I _stirring_ you up?” He pretended to shout melodramatically into the now-empty police station. “Help! Sheriff! I’ve been mugged! This mug just _stole my heart_!”

X laughed freely now, and Optimug’s ceramic heart _soared_ with joy.

“X, words can’t _espresso_ how much I like having you around. I know it’s been hard for you lately, but you know… _chai_ like you. A _latte_.” That didn’t feel as right, so Optimug finally, reluctantly dropped the gimmick. “X… I really like you. A lot. I’m sorry it’s been so hard for you here. But… I just want you to know, I’m here for you. I care about you.”

X was quiet for a long time.

“I know, Optimug. Thanks for cheering me up.” He paused a beat, then said, with uncharacteristic sheepishness, “Um… _chai_ like you, too. A _latte_.”

Optimug couldn’t help it— he gasped aloud.

“Wait, _you do_?!” He didn’t mean to sound so shocked, but he couldn’t help it— he _was_ shocked.

“Well, yeah. Of course I do. Didn’t you know that?” X sounded honestly confused. “I thought I was making it obvious.”

“X, you say like _five_ words to me a day! If I’m lucky!”

“Which is _five_ more than I say to the other mugs in here,” X pointed out. “Optimug, I’ve liked you since we were both at Black Badge together. I thought you knew?”

This was the worst, best, most shocking day of Optimug’s eventful life. He considered himself an optimist, but never in his life did he think he would get _this_ lucky. He was _speechless_. And if there was one thing that Optimug Prime _never_ was, it was _speechless_.

“But— I— You— We—“ he stuttered uselessly, unable to lock on to any thought besides _IS HE SERIOUS, THIS ENTIRE TIME_ —

“Hey, Optimug…” X said, after Optimug had gibbered himself into stunned silence.

“Yeah?” he answered, still in a state of shock.

“Are you fully caffeinated? Because you make my heart beat faster,” X murmured, and somehow he made it sound _so cool_ instead of _so corny_. Optimug gaped at him. “I _sink_ we’re going to be in here all night together. What do you say the two of us put the _u_ and _i_ in cappuccino?”

Optimug may have been speechless, but he had never said _yes_ to anything so fast in his entire life.

The rest of the night passed in a chorus of happy and energetic clinking, and when the light clicked on the next morning, both mugs knew that their lives would never be the same.

Officer Haught sighed as she found two filthy mugs in the sink.

“Are Jeremy and Nedley _completely_ _incapable_ of washing their own mugs? This is ridiculous.” She washed them both and set them on the drying rack, then walked away, shaking her head at her thoughtless coworkers.

Once they were alone again, clean and wet and side-by-side on the drying rack, Optimus heard a whisper from the mug next to him.

“Hey, Optimug?”

“Yeah?”

“…Thanks. I needed that.”

“…Anytime, hot stuff.”


End file.
